KHALID KHANNOUCHI - The Moroccan King of Queens

by Marc Bloom

The turning point in Khalid Khannouchi's life and career came on a steamy August day in 1995 when he met Sandra Inoa, his future wife, at the Healthcare 5k road race in Hartford, Connecticut. Inoa, originally from the Dominican Republic, was a savvy, money-winning runner hopping from one event to the next. Khannouchi was a nobody.

Midway in the 5k, Inoa, drained from the heat, dropped out. Khannounchi, who'd recently flown in from his native Morocco to make his home in the United States, also dropped out. Soon after, these two dnfs joined forces to conquer the world.

It's been a startlingly rapid conquest, too, as the Khannouchis explain one morning at the Victory Field track in the Woodhaven section of the borough of Queens in New York City. Khalid has come to do his morning 8.5-mile run on the wooded trails of adjacent Forest Park, a 10-minute drive from the apartment he shares with Sandra and her two teenage daughters in Brooklyn.

Seated on a peeling park bench, as walkers and runners and a group from the Special Olympics fill the track, Khalid and Sandra tell how they became business partners first and lovers second, and how Khalid--in a period of one year from their marriage in the fall of 1996 to the Chicago Marathon in October, 1997--went from anonymity to the best road racer in the world.

They appear to be an unlikely couple. Khalid is 26, slight, with chiseled features, a sober expression and the fervor of someone who, as a Muslim, prays five times a day. Sandra is 36, has been on her own since 16, laughs easily, thinks in the pragmatic terms of a corporate executive, and knows where every dollar is. Khalid runs, and Sandra does everything else.

“I make sure that all Khalid has to do is run, eat and sleep,” says Sandra. “That's what you need to be at the top.”

Khalid's running goes like this: 90 to 100 miles a week, including 25-lap fartlek workouts on the track with accelerations of up to 2,000 meters, plus periodic visits to New Mexico for altitude training. Khalid's eating: lots of arroz con pollo (chicken and rice). Khalid's sleeping: he takes a two-hour nap every afternoon.

That's not an unusual existance for a world-class runner, but what has given Khalid the glow of a champion and the 1 percent edge--what enabled him to beat the Kenyans repeatedly on the roads last year at races like Falmouth and Bix and then win Chicago in a world debut marathon record 2:07:10--is a clear vision and peace of mind. He has nothing to worry about. Sandra does the worrying. Khalid's the talent. Sandra's the guru, the soothsayer. She understands the path to a runner's heart.

Take the arroz con pollo . At the fateful ‘95 Hartford 5k, Khalid sponged a ride with Sandra back to New York. They talked about their dnfs, and Sandra saw that Khalid was a lost soul. Though keen and an excellent student in Morocco, Khalid was working at odd jobs like restaurant dishwasher to scratch out a living, and training late at night. He didn't know which races to run in the U.S. or how to make money. Sandra, working for years as an athletes' agent, pointed the way.

Sandra invited Khalid to her Brooklyn apartment to plan races. “She cooked for me,” says Khalid with gratitude. The arroz con pollo , Dominican style. With her college degree in physical education, Sandra also knew massage therapy and would give friends a rubdown. She gave Khalid a massage, working the kinks out of his 5'5”, 120-pound body, and he liked that even more than the arroz con pollo.

They became friends--just friends--at first, and Sandra set Khannouchi up at small races where he could develop his running, gain confidence and earn a few bucks. Early in ‘96, however, Khalid was still the kind of nowhere runner who would place 9th in the USA indoor 3,000.

To Sandra, the problem was obvious: Said Aouita. The Moroccan running hero and former world recordholder many times over, Aouita was coaching several Moroccans, including Khalid, and would preside over the group at training camps in the Albuquerque area. Though Khalid as a youth had stayed up until 2:30 in the morning to catch Aouita's 1984 Olympic 5,000 victory on TV in Morocco, he didn't like him as a coach. He said Aouita overtrained him and did crazy things like make him run hard the day before a race. Sandra said Khalid's diet, under Aouita, was awful and that “he was eating garbage.”

Goodbye, Said.

Hello, Sandra.

Sandra took over the cooking and the coaching. “You follow my advice,” she told Khalid, “and you're going to be great.” Khalid was smitten. “She was honest, she loved running. I knew I could depend on her,” he says.

Initially, Sandra had no romantic interest in the young Khalid. “I prefer men older and taller than me,” she says. “But our caring relationship grew to love.”

They got married in September, 1996, in a civil ceremony at the Queens County Courthouse. The Khannouchis have a second wedding planned with Khalid's family in Morocco after Khalid defends his LaSalle Banks Chicago Marathon title on October 11. They hope it will be a victory celebration as well.

This day, traffic on the park track reflects the ethnic diversity of the Queens neighborhood. Asians, Blacks and Latinos circle the oval. It's an odd mix of serious calorie-burners and the idiosyncratic. An elderly gentleman does laps in a three-piece suit. Another runner has a hundred keys jangling from his pocket. A woman power walks while pushing a baby carriage--not a Baby Jogger. In this community, people have jobs, not careers, and nearby there are blocks of Archie Bunker row houses with religious statues on matchbox lawns.

Khalid and Sandra will soon leave the area for the leafy suburbs of Westchester County. They've purchased a home with a swimming pool and big backyard in the town of Ossining, so Khalid can run daily on the endless carriage trails of nearby Rockefeller Park, where he already trains a couple of times a week, and Sandra's daughters can attend better schools.

The Khannouchis can now afford their piece of the American Dream. Khalid earned $100,000 in prize money and bonuses at Chicago and stands to collect more than twice that amount in total earnings this year. He'll receive an appearance fee of around $75,000 at Chicago and has a five-year New Balance contract worth at least $50,000 a year.

Sandra's role as coach-manager-massage therapist-sports psychologist-investment strategist was in full flower leading into Chicago. Like any young star, Khalid felt entitled to earn good money. But Sandra convinced him to run the Philadelphia Half-Marathon for peanuts because it was good test for Chicago. Khalid won Philly in 1:00:27 to break the course record by 19 seconds, picking up a mere $3,000.

But the real challenge for Sandra was convincing Khalid to run Chicago in the first place. “I was thinking it was too soon for a marathon. Let me keep running the 5k and 10k,” says Khalid. “Sandra said the course was flat and nothing would bother me. She said other runners like Todd Williams were making their debut.”

“I spent two months working on his mind,” says Sandra. “He complained he was getting a small appearance fee. I told him, ‘First do something, so you can earn an appearance fee.' I told him he would win and run 2:07:25. He told me I was crazy.”

In 1997, Khalid made four trips to Albuquerque for altitude training. At home for his marathon buildup, Khalid did two 20-milers at 5:30 per mile, taking the pace down to 4:45 and 4:35 for the last two miles. In his final tuneup 10 days before Chicago, he ran the last 3 miles of a 15-miler in 4:45, 4:30 and 4:25.

Whatever the distance, Khannouchi likes to run from behind, hold back and make the most of his late-race speed. In one 4-mile race last year, he ran the last 800 meters in 1:56. “I don't have good speed,” says Khalid remarkably. “But I can sustain a long kick. In the last half-mile, it's very difficult to beat me.”

At Chicago, Khalid hung with an armada of Kenyans through a 1:04:10 first half, then, impatiently, ripped off 4:38, 4:45 and 4:48 in the last three miles to breakaway to a 69-second triumph. His 2:07:10, the world's fastest time of 1997, was only 20 seconds off the world record and the fastest marathon ever run in the United States. Khalid would never doubt his wife again.

“We train with negative splits,” Sandra affirms. “That's why Khalid wins.”

Khalid prefers a more philosophical view. “It is destiny,” he says. “Like God planned it.”

Sandra and Khalid leave the Queens park in their 1992 Ford Taurus with New Mexico plates for a stop at their soon-to-be-vacated Brooklyn flat before lunch. The neighborhood, Wyckoff Heights, borders Queens and is a Spike Lee kind of ‘hood with people of color mixing with old-time Sicilians. The earthy aromas of Spanish food blends with the delectable sweetness of Italian bakeries. Two retired men killing time on a stoop wave to Sandra but, she says, have no idea who Khalid is. Around the corner, there's a splendid high school track that sits empty but is locked to outsiders.

The Khannouchis' second-floor walkup is in a moving mode, and Sandra apologizes for the disarray. She points out the tiny room where she gave Khalid his first massages and shows the natural oils--lemon grass, rosemary and arnica flower--she uses to hasten recovery.

Khalid moves like he runs: with precision and efficiency. His gestures are contained and he's mellow, an athlete at once fiesty and serene who, in Sandra, has found a soul mate to lift and nurture him. Khalid's in good shape, winning races, beating Kenyans and expects to meet Michael Jordan a second time at Chicago. Meanwhile, Sandra pays the bills, handles the taxes, watches over their investments and goes up to Westchester to confer with the engineer on the new house.

“Wo...wo...wo...” mouths Khalid playfully, humming a Simon & Garfunkel tune that he uses to relax before races. Told that the famous duo grew up singing nearby, Khalid smiles and repeats, “Wo...Wo...Wo...”

Khalid was not so cool when he first took up residence with Sandra. “He had an attitude,” she says. “Moroccan men are macho. The woman is expected to be quiet, inferior. I had to work on that. And Khalid's family did not approve of me.”

Khalid grew up with three brothers and four sisters in Meknes, a city of 1 million, in central Morocco. It was a close-knit family. Khalid's father, Mohamed, who has a mirror-and-glass business, coached Khalid in soccer and encouraged Khalid to run. Khalid took up running at 15 and won several national junior titles in track and cross-country. But he was no prodigy. His 3,000 time of 8:35 was not as fast as the best high school kids run in the U.S.

Khalid ran through olive groves dreaming of greatness. He drank olive oil straight from a shot glass, considering it an elixir. He improved his 10,000 to 29 minutes flat at 19 and began studying biology in college. He came to the U.S. in 1993 to run the World University Games in Buffalo, New York. He won the 5,000 in 14:01. He knew he'd come back.

But not before he stuck by his mother's side in her losing battle with breast cancer. And not before he received his father's blessing. Says Khalid, “He told me, ‘You act like a man. Whatever you do, it's your decision.'”

Well, almost. Keeping with Islamic tradition, the father had picked out a wife for Khalid. When Sandra came into the picture, there was friction. She was older, and not a Muslim. “My family,” says Khalid, “was worried about the relationship. They said, ‘Are you still praying and reading the Koran?' I said ‘Yes, it's in my heart, but so is this woman. I need her and I love her.'”

“Khalid teaches me Muslim prayers,” says Sandra. “He knows I'm a good woman who believes in God.” Sandra has also impressed two of Khalid's brothers who live in the New York area. The father was satisfied and now a big Moroccan wedding with 400 guests is in the works. One of the expected guests is world 1,500 champion Hicham El Guerrouj, a friend of Khalid's and likely Olympic favorite for Sydney.

Khalid has the same Olympic aspirations in the marathon. He doesn't speak of future world records or running Boston or New York. He becomes animated and emotional about possibly representing the United States in the Olympic Games. He has applied for citizenship and the papers are moving through channels. He and Sandra are waiting, hoping, thinking maybe he could even be an American in time for the 1999 world track and field championships in Seville, Spain.

Sandra and Khalid leave their apartment and head out for lunch. It's a sparkling Brooklyn afternoon. The sun is out, the streets clean, the pace of life unhurried. Delivery men unload their goods at mom-and-pop storefronts. Crossing guards usher well-manner students carrying heavy book bags across the boulevard.

The runner and his coach stroll down the street holding hands. Just then, Khalid pipes up again, “Wo...wo...wo...”

Postscript: Khannouchi has since won three more Chicago Marathons and one London Marathon, setting two world records (2:05:42 and 2:05:38, since broken), and now lives in plusher quarters in the Westchester County suburbs outside New York City.

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